“Technically, I’ve heard of it happening, but not to anyone I know. It was always a friend’s uncle’s neighbor’s dentist type of story. Kind of hard to trust and impossible to verify.”
“I wonder if it really means that, or if it means something else—something sinister, maybe.” Chills ran down her arms and spine, causing her to shiver. “Never mind, I don’t even want to think that way.”
Andy didn’t argue; he felt the same. “Let’s change the subject then. Like…I heard you’re in bed with the Bennetts.”
Emily’s chest tightened, and the room began to spin. Despite the sun shining directly on them, her peripheral vision dimmed, and she wondered if this was a panic attack. No one had ever made her feel such intense emotion, so she wasn’t sure how to handle it. Never before had she experienced the kind of insecurity—and now anxiety—she felt when in the presence of Andy Crowe.
“I’m not in bed with them.” It was her only argument, knowing his intention for bringing up her relationship with Bobby. “I’m… We’re…” Emily shook off the apprehension, embracing the inner fight she was used to having, and turned her upper body to face him. “We’re not even dating anymore.”
Hope blossomed in his chest, though he wasn’t sure why. Ever since he’d walked into the ice cream parlor and caught Emily with Bobby, Andy had refused to allow himself to think about her. Granted, that didn’t always work, but when thoughts of her did cross his mind—which happened more than he cared to admit—he had to consciously push them away.
That wasn’t a mess he wanted to dive back into.
“Anymore? Meaning you were dating?” When she nodded, he followed it up with another question, one he desperately needed to know before carrying on with any conversation with her. “Are you still seeing him? Talking? Have any communication with him whatsoever?”
“Yes,” she answered hoarsely, not at all wanting to admit it aloud. “He’s still trying to win me back, attempting to prove that he’s the man I deserve. But I haven’t given in.”
Andy ignored the unspoken yet that seemed to belong at the end of that sentence and, instead, asked another important question. One that had plagued him for over a month. “Were you together on the Fourth?”
“No.” The conviction in her stare didn’t leave room for debate. “He had broken up with me a few days earlier. That’s why I didn’t want to go to Main Street—we were supposed to celebrate together. But my friends didn’t want me to sit at home and sulk all night, so they begged me to go with them.”
“Then why didn’t they show up?”
“They did.” Emily’s eyes closed just as a soft grin lined her lips. “They walked past, didn’t see me, so they assumed I changed my mind and went without me.”
“Why is that funny?”
Her eyes opened, finding his immediately. He’d seen them before, knew what color they were, yet he’d never been this close in this much light. They convinced him that magic existed, because as he memorized every navy striation within the aquamarine, the rest of the world vanished. His history with Bobby disappeared. The rivalry between his family and the Bennetts…gone. No puff of smoke, no cape, no wand or top hat.
Just. Magic.
“Because,” Emily said, breaking through his thoughts, “if I had sat two feet to the left or two steps up, they would’ve seen me. And if they’d seen me, I would’ve never met you. If I hadn’t met you, I probably would’ve taken Bobby back that day in the diner when you came in and saw us.”
“Wait a minute…are you telling me that you’re not with Bobby because of me?”
She shrugged. “Well, yeah. Kind of.”
“Why?”
This took her a little longer to respond, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she needed to contemplate her words before saying them aloud. “He and I started dating right after…” She rolled her wrist, gesturing that he knew the rest of her thought. “And I don’t believe that he ever got over her. That’s why I think he broke up with me—to go after her. It hurt; I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. Rejection never feels good, regardless of who deals it. But you helped me see it for what it was.”
“Which was…?”
“My heart wasn’t broken. My ego was bruised.”
Pride swelled in his chest, even though he didn’t know where it came from. Regardless, he was proud of her, as well as himself, for playing a significant role in her realization. “So he left to find Brenda, and when that didn’t go his way, he came back and knocked on your door?”
“Well, I don’t know that he went after her for sure; it’s just a gut feeling I have. He said he went with his family to look at property, but I don’t believe it. I also don’t care enough to prove him wrong. But to answer your question, yes. And then he about blew a gasket when he found out I’d spent the Fourth with you.”
This surprised Andy. He balked, pulling his head back and staring at her as if she’d spoken in tongues. “Why would he be mad about that? If anyone should be mad, it’d be me.”
Emily’s reaction now mirrored Andy’s—shocked and confused. “You stole the love of his life from him, so naturally, he’d be upset and paranoid that you were going to take me from him, too.”
“I didn’t steal Brenda from him.”
This was news to Emily, news she desperately wanted and needed to hear.
“He accused her of cheating on him with me, which is what led to their breakup. Brenda and I did end up dating, but she never cheated on him, and I certainly didn’t steal her. He pushed her straight into my arms. Then, at the end of June—less than a week before the Fourth—he asked her to meet up with him to discuss something, and she agreed. She was gone two days later. So really, I should be pissed at him for running her off. I didn’t steal her from him; he stole her from me.”
Emily swallowed harshly, digesting everything that Andy told her. This was a very different story than the one she’d heard from Bobby, and she had a hard time making sense of it all. “We were still together at the end of June. He never said anything to me about meeting up with her.”
Andy sat quietly while she worked it out in her head.
“Does this mean you knew about me?”
“Yes and no.” It was the best answer he could give. Deciding to give her the full explanation, he huffed and dropped his head into his hand for a moment before scratching his jawline in contemplation. “I think—well, we both thought—that Bobby had moved on so quickly to make Brenda jealous. So I knew about you, but not who you were.”
Her stomach twisted into sailors’ knots. “He started dating me to get her back?”
“That’s the theory at least, because she and I weren’t even together at that point. We didn’t become an item until after he started seeing you.”
Emily waved her hands in front of her before burying her face in her palms. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Her words were muffled, though he still understood.
Andy didn’t want to see her hurt, and he especially didn’t want to be the one who caused her pain, so he agreed to change the subject. “Are you looking forward to going back to school?”